misrepresentation of bartered office help

[houlihan]

For one month, I had a woman work with me with the intent of managing my new business' office, located in Washington State, in exchange for her purchase of an asset I own. She was on medical leave but insisted that whe was willing and ready to do part time work; she just needed to take breaks. It took me a month to assess her abilities and I have been severely disappointed in how she represented her skills. She also refused to work the hours we had agreed on because "there was work to do." I prefer to work alone but was flexible to allow her the time to learn and grow. She insisted on things like driving me to the airport so that she could use my car (free gas and miles -- and a trustworthy vehicle) and she "just really really wanted to". I would have preferred to drive, frankly, and certainly did not solicitate this help or imply that she would get more for this than the free use of my car and gas. While with me, she made ghastly errors on work that had been clearly outlined for her. these errors caused potential clients to question my company's professionalism, I had to redo basic work she did (ie I paid for work and then had to do it myself) and she made one error that almost put me out of business. She has logged all her hours and is expecting "under the table payment" of a wage that we agreed to but that is above what she made with her previous employer, above her true skill level and included the hours spent making errors, figuring out errors and correcting errors incorrectly. I have paid about half of what she has logged as due and less than half of what she is now saying she wants to be paid. She only was willing to buy my asset if I held a contract and I no longer feel comfortable doing this.
Must I pay her the difference? Since she logged almost fulltime hours (not yet paid by me) over the past 2 weeks must I consider her employed and consider taxes? If I treat her as an independent contractor do I have any argument against paying her hourly for all time logged even if the work was unsatisfactory?

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

My response:

Since you instructed her concerning what to do, and when to do it, and supplied the tools with which to do it, she is your employee. She is not an Independant Contractor.

Pay her EVERYTHING and fire her. Don't argue with her, just get rid of her.

Chock it up to your mistake for not having tested her skills before you hired her. You'll do better if and when there's a next time.

IAAL